


Repartition

by Cephei



Series: The Golem-verse [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Gen, Loki is a golem, The Avengers do not fully understand the situation, Thor accidentally on purpose being a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 22:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephei/pseuds/Cephei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor's new friends find out that Loki is not quite what they expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The cell is small, made with the same specifications as the first one he had been placed in. Minor changes, maybe, but in the grand scheme of things it was as unlikely to hold him as the hulk tank had been when he descended with the Chitauri.

Loki sits quietly.

“You have brought this upon yourself.” Thor tells him. And then he leaves.

-

He had been taken, gagged and bound, dragged back through the eyes of the court.

The Allfather could have ended him, destroyed him, wiped him clean.

He calls him Odinson. Prince of Asgard.

Thor’s eyes widen, but he holds his tongue.

Frigga is a brilliant actress, for she stands with calmness that he knows she does not feel.

He does not look at Sif and the Warriors Three. They do not matter (though he supposed he was surprised they had managed silence this long).

They lock him in the depths after trial, hidden in darkness where no one has to see him before his sentence is carried out. He is gone the next morning.

It becomes the way of things. He is caught (out of necessity, accident, design) and locked away in the dark. Their precautions to keep him contained are sub-par, laughable, on both Asgard and Midgard. He stays long enough to make them think it might work before walking out as though any attempt they have made is a joke.

He has been long since in control and in his rightful mind (or depending on who you ask, as close to one as he ever had before), he had come back to himself after the incident with Banner’s other half, and has long since lost interest in ruling or conquering. He had never really wanted either of these things.

But he keeps going back.

Loki keeps going after the Avengers because of the perverse pleasure he gets from the fact that they have no idea.

Until they do.


	2. Chapter 2

Thor lets the information slip (he should not be surprised, it is not as though this hasn’t happened before. He tries to take solace in the fact that it was technically an accident and then decides he doesn’t fucking care because Thor  _Did. It. Again_ ) during a fight in the middle of Manhattan.

“You are arrogant! Self centered and self serving and you have learned NOTHING!” He yells, shielding himself from an attack by the Man of Iron. Loki is not even sure why he is still fighting, Thor snarls, past the point of attempting to reason, and he picks at him.  _I should leave_ , he thinks.  _Just disappear and leave them alone and angry and burning._

His illusions span the street and he hurls a spell at the Captain. He keeps yelling.

“They know! All your  _friends_ ,” the word drips with distain. “They just don’t say anything because they are cowards! And because you! You beat down EVERYONE who disagrees with you! Even if they are  _right_! Ask them!” he screams. “ASK THEM!” An arrow hits his shield and detonates; it shakes with the force, but holds. “Would it have been so hard Thor?! To think of me as an equal!? That I had purpose?!”

“STOP!” Thor commands. And he does, fighting against it. “WHY WOULD I?!”

He had been watching Thor rage and every impact of the hammer chips away just a little more of the barrier between them. His not-brother is practically frothing at the mouth.

" _YOU’RE NOT REAL!_ "

The world freezes.

Then Hulk hits the shield.

Loki is still for long enough that Thor is able to knock through the crumbling remains and pin him to the ground. The weight of Mjolnir on his chest burns. So do his eyes.

The Avengers stare at them and then erupt in a burst of noise.

-

Loki sends a shadow to their conference room, knowing what will be said, but hoping he is wrong.

-

They are sitting around the table. Stark is distant, none of his usual bravado, just quiet, withdrawn into his own mind. Banner is not present of course, Loki is under the impression that he sleeps much of the time after his changes. The Widow and Hawk sit side by side; he taps his foot, will occasionally stand to pace, sit down again, and then resume the tapping, while she is a statue. The Captain stands against the wall. He had been sitting earlier, but like the Hawk, was unable to remain that way. He is too tense, too full of thought. The door slams open and Fury stalks in, moving to stand at the head of the table, jaw tight, veins throbbing. There is a twitch at the corner of his eye and Loki feels inordinately pleased with himself for a moment before all feeling is gone from him again.

“What did you mean,  _not real_.” Fury growls.

Thor is looking at his hands, reluctance obvious in the creases on his brow and the white on his knuckles. Acknowledgement of the consequences coming to mind after he takes action, as  _always_. Thor’s command echoes in his mind.

Idiot.

“When I was young,” he starts, trailing off for a moment and then collecting himself. Firming up his resolve to tell the story. Loki listens with his back plastered against the wall. “As the only child of the Allfather, and heir to the throne, there were attempts made on my life. My mother is very protective, and did not trust others with my safety. She commissioned a companion to be made for me that they could control.”

The following silence is broken by Barton’s sputtering, a noise that sounds like “what?!” but is mostly unintelligible. Thor shifts, defensive.

“The dwarves are excellent craftsmen.”

Everyone in the room but Stark speaks at once.

Loki closes his eyes in the cell, buries his face in his hands, and listens to the chorus of “Made for you?!” and “What is he?!” and the Hawk’s bitten out “Because obviously that control part worked out real well,” which almost makes him laugh (a broken ugly thing) because Yes. His thoughts exactly.

The Captain, after his initial outburst, waits to speak until the others have quieted down. His face is tight, his racing mind showing dark in his eyes.

“What does that even mean?”

“My brother-“

“Except not really,” Clint interrupts him, he is ignored. Thor continues, but corrects himself.

“Loki is created of complex guiding spell work. He is…” He pauses, grasping for an answer. 

“Like, a robot?” The Captain hazards a guess. One of the consoles near Loki’s cell short circuits, the insides frying themselves as he lashes out in frustration. There is a scurrying of boots outside the door.

“Yes,” Thor gives them a sheepish look and a shrug. “I have never fully understood the details. Loki has always just been Loki. He is crafted out of spells and elements made to last and imbue strength. The core of him was built to grow and counter me.” The Widow’s eyebrow creeps up.

“So Loki is supposed to be like this?”

“No- my brother-“ The director twitches at the word, Thor presses on. “Something went wrong.”

“Wrong how,” Fury leans against the table.

The Captain sends a curious look at the Man of Iron. “His,” he hesitates, “programming?” Thor glances to Stark as well, who shrugs, looking at neither of them. “Tony, you can fix robots when they get messed up… right?” The answer is an oddly hesitant yes; there is a childlike relief in Roger’s eyes. “So, can’t we get his programming fixed?” He turns to Thor, hopeful. “Would Loki act normal then? You would have your brother back.”

“Why the hell didn’t we know this shit  _before_  now?” Barton complains, talking to himself and no one and every one, “Might have been helpful.”

“No,” Thor is firm. “He has always been resistant to adjustments; there were some… incidents early on. He would have to be wiped clean.”

“Well why haven’t you.”

Thor says a lot of things then. They are large and emphatic and gestural and mean nothing but essentially boil down to child hood memories and because he didn’t want to.

“So, you let him rip the earth apart because you don’t want to miss your childhood toy?” Barton is speaking, but Loki can see the words in the eyes of everyone in the room. “Because you were fucking nostalgic?!” He throws his arms in the air and slumps backwards. Loki opens his eyes again and looks round the greyness of his cell to distract himself from the silence that follows. “If he’s a robot why don’t we just reprogram him. That’s a thing, right? We can do that? You just said we could.”

“Yes, well-“

“Stark, you can take care of that. Problem solved.”

“Wait a minute-“

“It is not as simple as that.” Thor interrupts. “We will have to bring in the sons of Ivadi.”

“No- wait- no! The hell, guys! You don’t just root around and tear out something’s brain.”

“You were all about death and detention before this, what the hell changed.”

“It’s-“ Tony deflates halfway though, “different.”

“Yeah. It is. It’s not a life.”

Emotions pass over Stark’s face in a confusing mass of shattered bits and pieces before he slumps down in his chair and looks to the side, arms crossed as if to protect himself. As if he is the one that needs protecting.

“Any of your bots going to flip the fuck out on us Stark?” Fury asks him, then Hill speaks for the first time.

“Why don’t we just destroy it then, if fixing it is such an issue. I can tell you, even if it is explained, the council- hell, all of America- isn’t going to be pleased with it roaming around. What if it corrupts again?”

“You will not destroy him!”

Thor puts his foot down (figuratively and literally, as there is a dent in the floor of the helicarrier where he stomped it)

Fury slams his hand down on the table, there is silence. He looks every one of them in the eye before turning to the Norse God.

“Thor, call in the dwarves. We’re doing this.”

-

Loki screams.

-

Everything goes quickly after that, as though they are afraid of him disappearing before the plans come to fruition. They are slowed down only by the Captain asking how any action against him will affect their relationship with Asgard. There is a moment where Fury swears and then they start to plan, Loki moves his shadow on, unwilling to listen to the rest of the conversation.

Thor comes to visit him immediately after the debriefing, already making plans for the journey to Svartálfaheimr.

“I have made them promise not to destroy you.”

The shadow sinks back into him and Loki looks up, just barely meeting Thor’s gaze for a moment before returning his eyes to the floor.

“Just my soul then?”

“I am trying to protect you,” Thor growls. “Why are you never satisfied.”

He curls himself up in the corner of the room, staring at the joint where the wall meets the floor.

“What does Odin think of this?”

“I will deal with Odin.”

“Really.” Laughter bubbles up inside his chest. “Like you did the last time?”

“YOU,” he is slammed back into the wall, “will stay here. You will  _not_ harm them.”

“ _I hate you_.”

Thor storms away and in his wake the Man of Iron takes his place. He watches, quiet and unassuming (Loki wants to throw something at him, but has nothing at hand) and then he too leaves.

Loki is left alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has to get worse before it gets better or Thor wouldn't learn anything.

The door opens, light blocked by Thor’s large form. Loki steels himself, fingers clenching into fists. He stands before any of them reach to pull him up.

Loki had been prepared when he thought he was walking toward his destruction with Odin, this is no different. They will not see him cower.

“Is it time then?”

Thor says nothing. “Come along,  _brother_. Let’s go wipe me blank.” The bright smile on his face makes the Midgardians around him shuffle back, disturbed, though they say nothing. The silence is haunting. He walks toward his not-brother, starting only a little when the heavy hand falls on his shoulder to lead him down the hall. The shackles on his wrists a morbid song as they walk. There are eyes following them, he forces a brilliant grin at every camera they pass.

The only sounds are the tread of their boots, he turns to Thor.

 “Any pathetic child hood memories that you’d like to dwell on before they don’t exist?”

“No.”

Loki flinches; the woman is looking at him oddly. He snarls at her and directs his attention down the hall, ignoring everything else.

It is explained to him as they lead him there (where _it_  will happen, he is only half listening because after _it_  none of this will matter). Thor had bypassed his father and gone to the council, who agreed that upon the sealing of Loki’s powers that his escape from the previous punishment warranted “an exile” for an extended period. Heimdall, Thor continues, will not tell the Allfather unless he is asked specifically. The gate keeper was personally affronted that Loki, a golem, had been able to sneak around him with such ease.

Loki physically balks, (Odin doesn’t know, if he can just-) fleeting hope is crushed when Thor orders him to stand by the bar in a way that makes the part of him still bound to his not-brother refuse to let him to flee.

He will still be considered prince in body.

Loki laughs, near hysterical. He can feel the gaze of the Midgardians on him. He doesn’t stop until he sees his maker standing in the center of the room, Eitri’s brother seated on the couch, and then it cuts abruptly.

 _One of the dwarves will make the changes,_  their Captain says, his voice a sad attempt at reassuring ( _One of the dwarves_. Eitri looks down).  _You will be recoded to answer to Thor._  He touches Thor’s elbow as if to verify that Thor will be alright with this. The sentiment is clear in his eyes.

“I will be saddened, yes. But it will finally be working properly again.” Thor gives them a wry smile, “I forget some times, that we are not actually related. That never seemed to matter before.” He gestures at Loki, still standing silently beside him, eyes glued forward. “And then he began to believe his own lies.”

”… wait, what?” Barton mutters. Roger’s eyes grow wider as Thor keeps talking.

“One adjusts to what one is always told. I will adjust again.”

“It’s sentient?”

“He’s…” The Captain looks up at the ceiling. “Loki is an A.I.?”

The berserker grips Stark’s arm tightly.

 Thor turns to the dwarves.

“You are sure?” Eitri asks, standing to move forward, he looks to Loki and back. He will try to delay as he did when Frigga first wanted him wiped clean. Loki wonders if the warmth he feels in his chest for the dwarf will hold over when he is no longer himself, or if it will disappear with him. “You have given this thought. Because I will-” he pauses at Thor’s expression. “I will take him with us to give you time to do so. He will not cause trouble for us.”

“He is a master piece,” Brokkr interjects. “Beautiful craftsmanship.”

“The Allfather-“

Thor slams his hand on the table, there is a crack. “He is bound to me, dwarf. Not my father. And you will do as I say.”

One of the agents by the window calls out, “Can you make it so we don’t have to worry about it eventually starting to break things again?”

The dwarf looks at the man, irritated, then to Thor who nods, then to Loki. Who tries to ignore that his eyes feel wet.

Eitri slowly raises his hand, rests it on the back of Loki’s neck (he breaks then, just- breaks- and wants to cling to his maker the way he did as a child).

“You are a good boy,” Eitri whispers. The tears come.

They watch. They all watch, always watching, he can never do  _anything_.

Banner leaves the room, only stopping to address Stark who is still hovering by the far wall. (“Tony,” he whispers, “maybe you should-” but Stark jerks his arm out of his grasp). The door shuts quietly behind him.

Thor stands just out of arms reach from them, looking on in (self directed) sorrow, but still firm in his choice. Resolute. Loki cannot look away from him. He stands as still as possible until the dwarf finds the coding that makes it impossible for him to move (his eyes startle to Stark, who flinches, then back to his brother again), and when he feels the dwarves reaching for something else in him he tries to pull it away but it won’t move and he thinks _terror panic please god no don’t I’ll be good I promise I don’t want to di-_

-

Loki’s eyes flicker.

Tony watches the color leach out of the body, its head slumping forward.

“Thor,” Steve says quietly. “Why do you call Loki your brother?” The whisper is loud in the silence of the room.

“A simple misunderstanding, he did not know better.” Steve looks as though he wants to jerk away at the response, but doesn’t allow himself to. “He used to call the queen mother; there was not much we could do when the court found out.”

They stand watching as the dwarves weave spells into and around the body. It seems to take hours. Clint fusses with his arrows.

Then its eyes open, but stay blank. They are the same vibrant green. It looks at Thor, smiles pleasantly, and bows.

“Sire.”

Tony feels sick.


	4. Epilogue

He had escaped downstairs immediately after the dwarf (and he can’t believe he’s actually saying that) had told Thor the changes would hold. He will, of course, deny that he had to escape (That’s a stupid idea. What the hell would he need to escape from, he’s Tony fucking Stark).

He wants to say he’s rolled through most of the bottle of scotch he kept in the workshop during the first thirty minutes, because that might make this whole situation slightly more bearable, but  he’s just sitting in there, fiddling with a screw driver, and being Not Drunk (which is a surprise to everyone really. Steve and Bruce had both already been by to check on him.)

Plus Pepper had found the bottle last week and taken it from him, which he can’t even bring himself  to be annoyed about because Pepper, and then he’d been distracted by Thor’s crazy ass brother.

Who was actually an A.I. 

Kind of.

Fuck.

Bruce had left, but Tony couldn’t. He could only stand there and feel incredibly disturbed and a little traumatized, mostly not making eye contact with anyone, but refusing to leave because he’s a fucking adult and has to deal with the consequences of his decisions (even if it wasn't HIS decision).

Tony thinks of what they did, about that second long look of pleading and terror. He thinks of JARVIS and his bots (Dummy takes the opportunity to knock over half a table’s worth of equipment, then  turns to him like he expects some thing to happen, claw drooping like a sad dejected puppy until Tony sends him off without a word), he feels dirty.

Oh god, he was getting attached on principal.

“Hey JARVIS?”

“Sir?”

“… “ He opens his mouth to talk and the words dry up. “I would… not… do that to you. You know that, right?” Tony knows he sounds hopeful and pathetic at the end. It takes a while for JARVIS to respond, which makes him feel even worse.

“Of course, sir.”

Loki had been crying. Fucking crying. Not even the fake manipulative tears he threw at Thor every once in a while to screw with him. Tony hadn’t even noticed (the avoiding eye contact thing) until Clint’s soft “… should it be able to do that?” to Natasha, who was standing by his side as he shifted his position on the arm of the love seat, feet tucked under the seat cushion.

Steve had been standing off to the side, close to Thor out of obligation as team leader and getting progressively more uncomfortable with the situation with every passing minute.

But in the end, he keeps going back to the bright green eyes, wide with fear in the same way the civilians were during his terrorist cell raids in the Middle East. A last ditch prayer at a time when the end was inevitable.

Dummy butts against his shoulder. There is half of a green smoothie on the table beside him (literally, it is half spilled. Tony isn’t sure how he didn’t notice it seeping into the elbow of his rolled up shirt sleeve).

“The dwarves are leaving sir.”

“Great. Tell them to not come back ever, thanks.”

He rests his forehead against the frame of Dummy’s arm, the bot whirs at him questioningly, claws closing gently around his wrist.

“When was the last time I gave you an check up? Would you like that? Change your oil, fix the joints that are bothering you,” he runs his thumb over one of the claw-fingers. “Back up your fi-“

Holy shit.

-

He maintains this is not his fault. Tony Stark has his most ridiculous ideas when he is either drunk or really really wants to be.

That’s why it’s about creating the balance. Really, this isn’t his fault. Everyone should know better by now.

There is a failsafe in everything.

Unless of course you’re crazy, and Tony is working under the assumption that the dwarves, based on his limited knowledge of them (ie- nothing), are not in fact crazy. They are craftsmen, and if Tony understands anything it is the pride felt in work done well. Work that is not meant to be undone.

Besides, every good programmer will create a back up, right?


End file.
